Death of Virgil

by Hermann Broch

  One human life does not suffice. It suffices for nothing. Oh, memory, oh, homecoming.

  And in the most unknown, the most invisible, in the most unutterable, in remotest divinity, there ruled one whose shadow was the light, always sensed, never known, the most unnamable, the utterly hidden. Was it not he whom the peasants shudderingly honored, believing that he dwelt in the primal woods of the Capitoline? No statue was erected to him, none could be erected, symbol of himself was he, although he had announced himself in the symbol of the voice. Oh, open your eyes to love! And high above the breath of the noonday song which kept flooding in, warm and full of the anxious love of men for the earth, full of the fearful love of earth for men, the star of night took its wandering course, it also a symbol, a symbol of the unnamable love that longed to descend, in order to lift the earthbound into likeness with the sun. Thus the midday rested in the breath from above and below; the span of the fiery wagon rested; the wheels were at rest, and Sol was resting.

  WAS this happiness that he felt? he did not know and he scarcely wanted to know; surely it was hope, a hope so exceedingly strong that, like a strong light or a strong tone, it became sheerly unbearable, so that when the motionless occurrence came suddenly to an end it appeared to him as a solace. Nor did he know how long it had actually lasted. Yet as it ceased, as the noontide was again set in motion and the glittering wheel started turning again, as the span again resumed its course and the wandering star was suddenly no longer in the sky, the door into the room opened, as if to give passage to the fleet-footed boy escaping at that very moment, but, in reality, opening because it had been clicked open by a somewhat portly, full-bearded man who now stood in the doorway with a friendly smile as though presenting himself as a cause for rejoicing, his arm raised in greeting, paying no heed to the boy scurrying past: it was not difficult to recognize this man as the expected physician; his demeanor, his looks, his whole effect made that clear, particularly his full, short-cropped, well groomed scholar’s beard, its blondness spun through with silver threads as though artificially inserted to inspire confidence, like the silver threads of age; and had any doubt existed, it would have been entirely dispelled by the attendants armed with instruments who followed after him with more pomp, if that were possible; and every qualm would have been silenced by the worldling’s professionally delighted welcome which came readily and smoothly from the ringleader’s smiling lips:

  “I counted on a recovering patient but I find one who has recovered.”

  “Yes, that you do.” It was said more quickly and with more conviction than he could have expected of himself.

  “Nothing can be more pleasing to a physician than to find his diagnosis confirmed, and the more so when this comes from such a great poet … however, if you declare yourself well only to evade the physician … now, what does your Menalcas say? ‘Thou shalt not escape me today, whither thou callest, there shall I appear!’ ”

  The blandness of the court physician was not agreeable, even though no patient is able to draw back from the secret charm of the medico; but a real country leech would have been preferable—, one could have talked to him of all sorts of things. Now the thing to do was, willy nilly, to come to terms with the one who was here: “I am not escaping from you … but, for the rest, forget the poem.”

  “Forget the poem? if your appearance didn’t contradict it, I should believe that it was the fever speaking out of you, Virgil! No, neither shall you escape me, nor shall I ever forget your poem; our ancestors are much too closely related for that: Hippocrates and Theocritus both came from Kos, and so I flatter myself that I am somewhat related to you …”

  “I greet you as a relative.”

  “I am Charondas from Kos.” This was said with an emphasis that befitted a famous name.

  “Oh, you are Charondas … so you are not teaching there any more; there will be many to deplore that.”

  It was not a reproach, at most it was the astonishment of one for whom teaching had always been a high goal impossible of attainment; however, he had touched a sore spot in the conscience of the court physician who started to defend himself: “It was not at all for the revenues that I obeyed the summons of Augustus; had I been keen on riches I needed only to continue treating my wealthy patients, of whom there were certainly enough; but who thinks of riches when it comes to serving directly the sacred person of Augustus! And it seems to me that by being in the center of state affairs, in which I can participate, I can accomplish something beneficial for science and for the welfare of the people, perhaps even more than I could as teacher … we shall be building cities in Asia and Africa; that is where a clinical adviser is indispensable, to give one instance out of many … of course this did not, and does not prevent me from feeling real pain at giving up my vocation as teacher; all in all, there have been years in which I have trained more than four hundred students …” and while he was holding forth about himself with this sort of chatter, half in candor half in vanity, in the attempt to establish a friendly intimacy, he had seated himself on the bed so that, by the help of a sandglass reached to him at his signal by one of the assistants, he could count the pulse … “but now keep quiet, we shall be through in a moment …”

  The sand in the glass trickled thinly, smoothly, inaudibly, uncannily, as it were with swift slowness.

  “The pulse means nothing.”

  “Wait, you may speak in just a moment …”—the sandglass spent itself—“now, it does not seem quite so unimportant to me, after all …”

  “Of course, we have been taught the importance of the pulse by Herophilus.”

  “The great Alexandrine—how much more he would have been able to accomplish had he joined the school at Kos; well, that’s a long time ago … but as to your pulse, far be it from me to insist that it is bad, but taken as a whole it could be much better.”

  “That signifies nothing … I am a little weak from the fever, and that always affects the pulse … I am quite easy on that score; I still know a few things from my medical studies, I haven’t quite forgotten them …”

  “Professional comrades make the worst patients, there I really prefer poets, and not only on the sick-bed … and how about your cough? and your sputum?”

  “The mucus is bloody … but that is bound to be; the secretions are getting back into balance.”

  “With all respect for Hippocrates … how would it be if you forgot to mix the art of medicine and the art of poetry for a while?”

  “Yes, the art of poetry deserves to be forgotten; I should have become a physician.”

  “I am quite ready to change places with you as soon as you are well.”

  “I am well. I shall get up at once.” Again it was as if someone else spoke out of him, one who was really well.

  In no time the physician had lost his man-of-the-world expression, the impartial proficiency which had been so disagreeable; the eyes in the smoothly cushioned smiling face. dark eyes with a golden glint in them, became sharp and observant, yes, almost worried, and the almost jolly conversation was incompatible with the look that accompanied it: “I am really and truly glad that you consider yourself in perfect health, but ‘make haste slowly’ cautions Augustus in cases such as these … also in convalescence there are gradations, and it is for your physician to decide how far you have climbed the ladder of convalescence …”

  The searching glance, the jolly talk, all this was disquieting: “You really mean that my convalescence may already have gone too far … what you really mean is that what I felt was an all-too-complete convalescence … you mean it is euphoria, do you not?”

  “Ah, Virgil, if that were so, I should wish you a very long-lasting and prolific euphoria.”

  “This is no euphoric condition. I am well. I want to go down to the beach.”

  “Well, I am not going to send you directly to the beach, but very soon to the mountains instead … had I been with the Augustus in Athens, I should have had you go at once to Epidaurus for the cure; be assur
ed I should have insisted on that … now we must make the best of it here, as far as possible … but nothing is impossible when both patient and physician have set their minds on getting well … how about your morning meal? Do you feel any hunger?”

  “I wish to remain abstemious.”

  “That’s all that is needed … who is the house-slave here? We shall begin with some hot milk … let the house-slave be off to the kitchen …”

  The slave, who had remained at the rear of the attendants, his face blank, made ready to carry out the order.

  “Not he … he is not to leave here … he is to prepare my bath.”

  “Today there will be no bathing … even though we may be glad to try out the baths later; what Cleophantes taught two hundred years ago as to the effect of bathing is still valid today … the nature of human beings does not change, and a truth once found remains a truth, notwithstanding the new remedies that we are now blessed with …”

  “In these things, as far as I know, old Asklipiades was also a follower of Cleophantes.”

  This interpolation called out the expected and even hoped for resentment, although it sounded quite restrained: “Yes, that old fox from Bythinia, who acts as if he had taken over water, air and sun as his own exclusive domains … whereas I as a young doctor, when the reputation of Asklipiades had barely started, had already achieved marked success with my bath and rest cures … of course, I respect him, and though it is not entirely improbable that even then he had got wind of my successful healings, I stand by my view that we physicians are here to cure our patients, and that arguments as to who was first to succeed ought to be strictly forbidden as undignified displays of professional jealousy … a physician needs only let his experiences mature; he has no need of noisily affirming the priority of his discoveries, which, alas, is the custom of so many people … twenty years ago I could have written a treatise on the effect of baths and I did not do it … how much harm has been done, for instance, by just this old Asklipiades with his writings on the effect of wine! one might be bold enough to say that he needs his ‘bath-cures’ only to rectify the harm that originated from his ‘wine-cures’ …” The speech ended in clear, smooth laughter; it was as if the surface of one laughter struck with mirror-like smoothness on the surface of another, in order to filch and retain a bit of it.

  “May one infer from that, you would never prescribe wine?”

  “In sensible quantities? Why not? Only I have no intention of turning my patients into tipplers … that is where Asklipiades is essentially wrong … well, let us skip that, for you are to have neither wine, nor a bath, but just some hot milk …”

  “Milk? as a medicine?”

  “It makes no difference whether you call it breakfast or medicine, unless you desire something else.”

  Milk was to be poured into him as if he were a child; even the physician wanted to reduce him to a child. One must rebel against this, it was imperative: “The night was not a good one, it was very hot …” The fever-dried fingers moved themselves almost automatically, in order to demonstrate visibly their craving for water—, “I have need of a bath.”

  But the rebellion came to nothing. The slave had hurried off without noticing the suggestion. Was he a traitor? Oh, the beaker had disappeared from the table and the boy had certainly been frightened off. The fingers continued their automatic, unbridled play and the ring was pressing as though it were suddenly too small. Why did this have to happen? why had they not let him alone with those two? why did they constantly hurl him back into this people-filled loneliness? Even the commode had been moved away.

  “I have to cleanse myself and I need a bath.”

  “Certainly you have to be cleansed, and not only you but this room as well, for the Augustus, as he ordered me to tell you, intends to greet you here in his own person, and very soon at that … my assistants will wash you presently with tepid vinegar …”

  This meant giving up all resistance: “The Augustus will be welcome … let them get everything in readiness.”

  “We are already at it, my Virgil; but first take this medicine.” And a glass with a transparent liquid was handed to him by the doctor.

  The liquid appeared unsafe: “What is it?”

  “A decoction of pomegranate seeds.”

  “That is harmless.”

  “Absolutely harmless. It is used only to make the stomach capable of absorbing food again. After a strenuous night, such as you have behind you, this seems to me an urgent necessity.”

  The drink had a cleanly bitter taste: “The guest must conform to the customs of the house, and I too must subordinate myself; whoever has erred must subordinate himself.”

  “Whoever is ill must accustom himself to subordination; that is the first request that a doctor must make.”

  “Every illness is an error.”

  “Of nature.”

  “Of the patient … Nature doesn’t make mistakes.”

  “Lucky that you do not think it an error of the physician.”

  “Just the same he becomes a co-sinner by his help; he is a false bearer of salvation.”

  “Truly I shall take that upon myself, Virgil, all the more as you yourself are thinking of becoming a doctor.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “That is what you said.”

  “I have always been ill; the false bearer of salvation has always been in me … I have always erred.”

  “You may really have studied the writings of our honored friend, Asklipiades, all too closely, my Virgil.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, his doctrine that it is possible to avoid every sort of illness by a proper conduct of life has an unmistakable resemblance to your theory that errors materialize as illnesses … with all due reverence, I dare to call this nonsense and absurdity that comes close to a belief in the medicine of magic … and that is no wonder, in the face of the moving atoms that, according to Asklipiades, are thought to be wandering about in the human body …”

  “Are you so opposed to magic, Charondas? Is there any healing at all without magic? I almost believe that we have only lost the veritable magic.”

  “I believe in the love-conjurations of your Enchantress, those that bring back Daphnis, oh, Virgil.”

  How wonderfully forgotten things emerged. Daphnis! The Eclogue of the Enchantress! Had he not sensed even then that any magic was preceded by love? that all evil, all error, could be identified as a lack of love? Whoever did not love was stricken by illness, and only he who was reawakened to love was able to recover: “Oh, Charondas, every doctor who possesses real healing magic frees his patients from their errors, and even you do this, though you are often unaware of it.”

  “I want to know nothing of it, because I cannot see illness as error … even animals and children fall sick, and surely these do not commit errors … this also, without wishing to detract from his importance in other matters, is something that Asklipiades has not gone into thoroughly.”

  Reduced to a child, reduced to an animal, brought low by illness, and because of illness retreating deep into a region the borders of which lay even deeper than those of the animal kingdom or those of childhood: “Oh, Charondas, the animal in particular is ashamed of its illness and hides itself.”

  “It is true that I am no veterinarian, Virgil, but insofar as I know my patients, most of them are quite proud of their illnesses.” This was said a little aside, because the business of combing his beard would not permit interruption, since a court physician must be in fine form for Caesar’s expected visit, and therefore he had taken out a hand mirror with comb from the folds of his toga, and had posted himself diagonally facing the window to catch the light more advantageously in the mirror, completely devoted to beautifying his scholar’s beard. And without interrupting this occupation, with his lower lip shoved upward to tense the skin and causing him to mumble, he continued aloud: “The sickness-pride of the patients is only surpassed by the healing-vanity of the doctors.”

  Thi
s was certainly true; there is no shame of illness so great that it leaves no room for the vanity of illness, an arrogant, sacrificial vanity which thinks to have rounded off an accomplishment because illness annuls the sexual drives, because all desiring and all that is desirable is expunged from the face of the sick—the vanity of self-destruction. And for this reason, or in spite of it: “Give me the mirror.”

  “Later, when we have tidied you up a bit; now you still look somewhat neglected.”

  “Permit me my illness-vanity; give me the mirror.”

  And when it had been handed to him, it gave him back the long-familiar yet strange image of his own face, very repellent and yet commanding, many-layered under the olive-brown, unshaven skin, with the ambiguous, dark eyes undershadowed in black, with the taciturn, shrunken, kiss-weaned mouth; and as he looked into this peering cave-countenance, which, as it were, submissively contained all the faces of life, this face-abyss of the past, into which one face after another had been flung, taken in and taken for eternity, the face of the mother mirrored in that of the child, even though her light-colored eyes had not been bestowed upon him, oh, as he glanced into this chain of faces, he saw the last face which was still to follow and was already outlining itself: the face of his hope, the face to which he had wished to transform himself by the force of illness, and it was the death-face of his father, the face of the dying potter, who had laid his forming hand on the head of the boy, the face that had called out his name; a wonderful assurance emanated from it, the other faces paled beside it, and whether it had been won by one means or another, whether illness had been the right way to achieve it, now that it was attained, seemed almost irrelevant: “Doctor that you are, heal me so that I can die.”

  “No one is omnipotent, you wrote that yourself, Virgil; I am only able to heal you back to life, and I shall do it too, with the help of Aesculapius.”

  “I shall have a cock kept in readiness for him.”

  “With which he can awake you to immortality? Oh, Virgil, you no longer need death to give you immortality; and now we should do better to start washing and shaving so that the Caesar doesn’t catch us at it; we are already pressed for time.”